The Big Picture

Chronicles of a Wandering Saint
is a small miracle of a feature debut by Tomás Gómez Bustillo, exploring life, legacy, and the supernatural.
The film follows Rita, a devout woman who tries to convince her community she’s special, leading to an unexpected journey of breathtaking beauty.
With excellent cinematography and a simple yet effective score,
Chronicles of a Wandering Saint
builds to a breathtaking and emotional conclusion.

There is a moment fairly early on in Chronicles of a Wandering Saint, the small miracle of a feature debut from writer-director Tomás Gómez Bustillo, where we come to what seems to be the close. The credits begin to roll and the character that we have been following for the opening act meets an end of sorts. What this is precisely is best left to the film, though suffice to say it takes what was an otherwise slow start and kicks it up another gear. Forget the works that have the late title card drop, this shows that there can be just as much joy in having the credits roll entirely with one of the best needle drops of the 21st Century and what feels like an entirely new film begin anew. What initially played like a more understated version of something like an episode of the sensational series Los Espookys, a work of art itself taken far too soon, becomes something more expansive and fantastical. Without going too far into detail, as the sudden swerve it makes is too delightful to dare give away, it takes a plunge into its own distinctly offbeat, frequently absurd, and ultimately melancholic vision.

In doing so, it brings into focus what it is that is so essential about life itself in often beautifully shot scenes that find resonance in the small, unexpected details that become vibrant when given a closer look. Even as the road that it takes to get there can be a little bit meandering, once all its cards are on the table, the journey it launches into is sublime. On a second viewing, you realize that it was in these small moments of a woman trying to create a “miracle” in her own seemingly ordinary life that the stage was being set for the true wonder to come. When it then becomes something more like an accessible echo of a film by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, it still finds its own unique meanings and gentle jokes as it undertakes what shifts into being a mirthful dance with the prospect of mortality. It’s a film that, much like life, relies on you sticking with it, warts and all, to discover the beauty that lies at its core. Even when it takes some peeling back to fully find it, so too do all our lives.

Chronicles of a Wandering Saint (2024) Release Date June 28, 2024 Director Tomas Gomez Bustillo Cast Mónica Villa , Horacio Marassi , Pablo Moseinco , Silvia Mackenzie , Noemí Ron , Silvia Porro , Hernán Bustamante , Dahyana Turkie Main Genre Drama Writers Tomas Gomez Bustillo

What Is ‘Chronicles of a Wandering Saint’ About?

This all begins with Rita (played by a magnificent Mónica Villa) who is praying alone in a church in a rural village in Argentina. Bathed in sunlight, she would seem almost saintlike if you were to walk in and see her in the perfect framing that cinematographer Pablo Lozano captures her in. As it turns out, this is by design as, when the sunlight shifts ever so slightly to her left, so too does Rita in a slyly comical introduction that tells us everything we need to know about her. You see, she is a devout woman who desires to be seen as not just the most committed in her congregation, but somehow apart from the entirety of humanity itself.

She’ll soon get more than she wished for, but first she’ll attempt a bit of a silly scam to convince her small corner of the world that she is special. This involves her discovering a statue in the church storeroom that she will try to pass off as being the long-missing effigy of Saint Rita. It isn’t, but as other good movies have shown us, one can’t let the truth stand in the way of a good miracle. As she and her boring though compassionate husband Norberto (Horacio Marassi) smuggle it out so she can bring it back when it is looking magnificent enough to be a compelling ruse, we see how the two of them have drifted apart. He tries to tell her of a surprise he has for her, culminating in a truly sweet yet still sad dinner scene, but she seems most interested in what others will think of her just as she quietly mourns an old loss.

Without ever getting wrapped up in the same humorous egotism that we see increasingly driving Rita’s life, Chronicles of a Wandering Saint grapples authentically with big questions about legacy and the meaning of life itself. It’s a film that may have its head in the clouds, but its feet remain firmly on the ground. It’s a difficult balance to strike, with some asides threatening to become a little too cutesy, but Bustillo shows he is more than able to walk the tightrope he creates for himself. It’s the small moments that prove just as significant as the sweeping ones that take the breath away. When Rita goes out for an important drive, determined to carry out her scheme until the bitter end, the people she passes are seemingly throwaway faces in the crowd that she drives past without stopping despite their need, but they’ll become foundational. Even a porchlight seen flickering through the vast darkness of night, something that can be chalked up to it just needing to be replaced, becomes a site of confined yet critical understanding. Felipe Delsart’s simple yet effective score, defined by the clarinet and piano operating in complete harmony with Lozano’s cinematography, makes this feel that much more unexpectedly moving. It’s like we’ve awoken to a setting both familiar and strange at the same time, turning the smallest slivers of life into something spectacular.

‘Chronicles of a Wandering Saint’ Builds to a Breathtaking End

As we wander through this world, one we have already seen with all its rough edges and loneliness, it all takes on a greater resonance when seen from the clarity of a new perspective. That it may come far too late for Rita, as well as any of us, is part of the point. Life is a fragile, often tedious thing that can be full of mundane pains, but it also remains a beautiful thing despite all this. Only when we understand what it is to lose it can we know what is that we are missing. It is this feeling that Bustilla brings to life perfectly in a quietly crushing yet cathartic conclusion. Something as simple as the guitar that Norberto would occasionally play is made into an artifact that is bursting with meaning. As you hear the film’s last notes ring out as the sunlight comes pouring through the window of this thing we call life one final time, you’ll only wish you too could go back through and get the chance to wander just a little bit longer.

REVIEW Chronicles of a Wandering Saint (2024) Tomás Gómez Bustillo’s Chronicles of a Wandering Saint is a fantastic feature debut and a small miracle of a movie that offers one of the 2024’s most beautiful surprises thus far.ProsWithout giving anything away, the shift that this film takes is delightful as it plunges us into its own distinctly offbeat, frequently absurd, and ultimately melancholic vision.Mónica Villa is magnificent as a woman wandering through her small corner of the world and discovering what it was that she has to lose.Cinematographer Pablo Lozano and composer Felipe Delsart operate in complete harmony with each other to make it all that much more unexpectedly moving.

Chronicles of a Wandering Saint is now available to watch in theaters in the U.S. Click below for showtimes near you.

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